Pretty good, but not great, horror opus

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2003)

My rating: 6/10
Though it's a return to form for Danny Boyle after such post-Trainspotting disasters as A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach, 28 Days Later could have risen to a higher potential. The opening scenes of a deserted London are tremendously effective, but some other scenes lose their full horror value because Boyle rushes through them, such as a scene involving a hurried tire-change before the onrushing hordes of the "infected" arrive. It flies by so fast we never get that "Oh Dear God hurry up!" sense of panic a horror film ought to build in the viewer.
Basically, what you have here is the same premise as The Omega Man or, amusingly, Demons. People are infected with "rage," which causes them to become mindless murdering beasts with fierce red eyes. It's stylishly shot, but the script unfortunately glosses over characterization: we barely know our hero, Jim, or his traveling companions Selena and Hannah. So our ability to fully feel what they have lost is muted.
The gore quotient is pretty good, though again the most violent scenes are shot in super-shaky-cam mode which makes things a bit too frantic to be effective. Boyle also knows when to use silence to generate suspense.
But near the end (I'll refrain from spoilers), the script becomes a bit too reminiscent of--of all things--Day of the Dead (the weakest of Romero's trilogy), when our heroes hole up with some military types who are a bit too macho for comfort.
Also, in an odd technical choice, most of the movie appears to have been shot on digital video--but not 24P High-Def, merely plain ol' DV or DigiBeta, then transferred to 35MM. The image is cruddy looking on the big screen (though it might look fine on DVD), and whether this is an artistic choice or a budgetary one is unclear. Oddly, the very last scene is crystal clear and seems to have been shot on 35. Go figure.
In all, it has its good points, but isn't the horror masterwork advance hype would have you believe. For really excellent British horror, check out Dog Soldiers instead.